


Helping Out

by neaf



Category: Glee
Genre: Comedy, Friendship, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-08 02:12:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neaf/pseuds/neaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine is away at a performing arts program, so Kurt meets up with Cooper at a gay bar to catch up and feel a little less lonely. He didn’t expect Sebastian to be there. But Cooper has his own way of dealing with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helping Out

Kurt slumped on his stool, leaning heavily on both elbows where they rested on the bar, hand pressed against the side of his head as he sipped his gin and tonic. It’d been weeks, now. Exactly three weeks since he saw Blaine, and he felt like his stomach had been hollowed out with a spoon.

The program was good for Blaine; it was a huge step - Kurt knew that. The exclusivity provided the kind of notes on his resume that would open doors down the road. That was wonderful - for _then_. It didn’t mean Kurt had to like it _now_.

His eyes flicked to the clock above the bar absently, wondering if Cooper would be as dramatically late as usual.

Kurt smiled softly around his straw, eyes unfocused and lingering over the lights past the bar as he remembered the last time he had both of them in one place. Cooper was good company, and even though he and Blaine were often polar opposites, there was still and undercurrent of comfort that came with simply being around an Anderson.

They hadn’t talked since a frantic phone call following Cooper’s last misadventure down south, something about a yacht, an heiress, and a ‘poorly timed siesta in a sombrero’, as Coop had put it. Kurt laughed at most of the stories these days, still stunned from time to time that Cooper and Blaine were somehow related.

It wasn’t until he heard the voice that Kurt even registered someone had slipped onto the stool beside him, drawing him out of his daydreams.

“Well if it isn’t my favorite designated driver,” Sebastian said smoothly, sipping his drink and setting it down.

Kurt straightened in his seat, blinking rapidly in surprise. “Wh- Sebastian?”

“Long time,” Sebastian said, swivelling to face him, leaning on an elbow. “And still just as reminiscent of a tiny collectible doll as ever, I see. You actually look even _more_ like walking jailbait three years later. What are you, Benjamin Button?”

Kurt sighed, letting his eyes fall shut. He wasn’t in the mood for this.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Sebastian said with a shrug. “Just enjoying the show.”

“Show?”

“You,” Sebastian sipped his drink again, “sitting here, trawling the bottom of the barrel for your best chance. It’s fantastic.”

Kurt glared. “I honestly thought you’d grow as a person,” he said casually. “And I didn’t mean sideways, although now-” he let his eyes drift over Sebastian’s frame. It was a cheap shot, he knew, but he was just lonely enough and bitter enough to let it slip.

“Cute,” Sebastian said with a pinch of his eyes. “Except, I’m the one going home with Clark Kent over there, while you get to take Moe, Larry or Curly back for a roll in the sack, if they’ll take you-“

“Hey baby,” a smooth, light voice interrupted, and Kurt rocked back on his stool as a body slid between him and Sebastian.

He glanced up, eyes wide, and couldn’t stop his mouth from falling open.

“I was just out there, and I saw you. Thought you might wanna dance, gorgeous?” Cooper leaned in, biting on his bottom lip teasingly and eyeing Kurt over.

Kurt blinked at him, shocked. He wasn’t sure if Cooper was sticking his ass in Sebastian’s face on purpose, but his brain was too busy short-circuiting to really care.

He fixed him with a deathly stare that spoke for him. _Cooper what the FUCK are you doing?_

Cooper’s eyes flashed in a silent plea not to leave him hanging, and Kurt froze for a second, suddenly aware of Sebastian’s huff of breath and irritated sounds coming from behind them. A smile curled the edge of Kurt’s mouth before he could stop it, and he slipped off his stool, tugging at Cooper’s arm to follow to the dance floor.

They were dancing for all of two seconds before Kurt punched him solidly in the shoulder.

“Hey!” Cooper laughed, rocking back with the hit, but still dancing. He shimmied a little closer, sticking out his lip in a pout. “I was _helping_.”

“You were not helping, you were -” He caught sight of Sebastian’s bitter expression. “Alright, you helped a little.”

“Uhuh, I knew it,” Cooper said with a grin, turning and shaking his ass suggestively in Sebastian’s direction for a moment before he returned his attention to Kurt. “How was my gay level, believable?”

Kurt couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh god, never say that again.”

“What? I just wanna know.”

“You,” Kurt waved a hand at him, “look like _that_ , trust me. No guy in this bar cares if you’re _believably_ gay.”

Coop waggled his eyebrows. “Excellent.”

Kurt let out an amused sigh. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“It helps that he hit on me when I got here, too.”

He spluttered, laughing so hard he nearly choked. “What?”

“Yep. He gave me a Superman line, too, like that’s new.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Kurt rolled his eyes, shifting to the beat.

There was a pause before Cooper glanced briefly over to the now-empty chair by the bar, then looked back to Kurt.

“Why didn’t you just tell him about Blaine?”

Kurt shrugged. “It shouldn’t matter. It’s not - about winning. Me and Blaine, we were never a race.”

Coop smiled at him, eyes bright and dancing under the spinning lights above them.

When Kurt realised Sebastian was actually on the dance floor behind them, he held back his groan. _Haven’t we done this before?_ he thought, and then corrected himself. _Wrong Anderson._

Never one to be out-done in any kind of game, Cooper moved closer, started swaying his hips to the beat, and Kurt was swept along with it. It wasn’t until Sebastian actually made a move to dance with him that Cooper turned into Kurt’s body and they bumped noses for a second before suddenly -

_Wait wha-_

There were lips on Kurt's lips, and it took a second for his brain to kick in.

_Wh- what is happening oh my **god** COOPER ANDERSON GET YOUR MOUTH. OFF ME._

Cooper jerked back, squawking out a laugh as Kurt shook his head at him in disbelief.

“Wh-what the-?”

“Sorry!” Cooper held up both hands. “I’m sorry, I was- he was- look, he’s gone!”

Kurt whacked at Cooper’s chest rapidly, unable to keep down his own laughter. “What was THAT?!”

“Instinct! It was instinct! I’m sorry, they do it all the time in the movies!”

“YOU WATCH TOO MANY MOVIES!” Kurt shouted over the music, still bumping into to his boyfriend’s brother repeatedly in an attempt to illustrate how annoyed he was - but mostly failing.

“Hey, hey,” Cooper dropped his hands on Kurt’s shoulders and pulled him over to the side of the dance floor where they leaned against the wall, trying to recover from random bouts of laughter at the lunacy of what just happened.

“Ohhh, my god,” Kurt pressed both hands to his stomach where it ached. “Well, this is officially the worst night ever.”

“Hey,” Coop laughed shakily. “I’m offended by that.”

“No, I’m sorry, being alone, missing my fiance, being insulted by my past and being surprise-kissed by one of my straight best friends is just a recipe for the best night ever.”

Coop snorted. “Fair. Okay, that’s fair.”

There was a pause, and Coop watched him for a second.

“It was good though.”

“Don’t go there.”

“Kay.”

Another pause, and this time Cooper worried his lip with his teeth.

“One of us is going to have to tell Blaine…”

“You,” Kurt said firmly, with no room for debate. “YOU are going to tell Blaine.”

“Also… fair,” Cooper agreed hesitantly.

This time Kurt could hear Cooper thinking in the pause.

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell him?”

“Cooper, man up!” Kurt snapped.

“Alright, alright,” he held up both hands, “I’ll tell him. Please just. Remember me fondly. And bury me with a shovel. And a banana.”

“Done,” Kurt agreed absently, pulling out his phone and checking his texts. Still nothing from Blaine since his last one.

“I think the bar might not be our scene tonight,” Cooper said, turning to lean against the wall and interlocking his fingers over his abdomen. “You wanna go back to my place?”

“Cooper!”

“What, it’s hard to shake the character!” he said. “You know what I mean, we can get chinese food and watch Oklahoma.”

“Deal,” Kurt said, shooting him a soft, fond smile. “Let’s go.”

After all that, Kurt truly loved that it was still that easy.

Even when he’d moved in with Finn, when they’d become a unit as a family, Kurt always found him more a friend than anything else. A close friend, like family, but there was something different about having a big brother like Cooper around. Someone weird and wild and wonderful, who never did what anyone expected.

They did eventually tell Blaine, when he came home. It was a matter of sitting him down on the couch, and trying not to think about how bad it all looked ( _Is this an intervention? Guys, I don’t wear that many bow ties_ ). When Cooper finally explained what had happend at Bar Eight that night, the last thing Kurt actually expected was for Blaine to wind up on the floor, crying with laughter.

He tried not to feel a little insulted at that, but then he remembered that Cooper had kissed him on the mouth after hitting on him in a gay bar, and quickly found himself doubled over and cackling.

Cooper just sighed and sat back on the couch, watching his family roll around at his expense and glaring at them fondly.

“Screw you both.”


End file.
